The Scarlet Letter and its hate from High School students (Blog by Daniel Lee)
As I was surfing the internet a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a Reddit thread that caught my attention. The reddit post shared an interesting statistic related to The Scarlet Letter. I was very amused by this post because we had just started to read The Scarlet Letter in our class. But when I looked at the comments, all I found was comments expressing hate towards The Scarlet Letter.
While looking through the comments, one in particular caught my attention. This comment was written by a college student, and it expressed the student's deep hate for the book and the effects it's had on his literary journey. The comment said,
"Oh man, I was a book fiend before high school. Read all the Harry Potter I could stomach as those books came out, read many different young adult series, read encyclopedias, history books, whatever I could find that was interesting. Then High School, and this piece of sh*t my freshman year. I'm only a year over college now, and I've finally just started reading on my own again."
Outside of this one comment, there are so many more comments expressing a similar hate. Most of the comments were coming from angry high schoolers who are/were frustrated to read The Scarlet Letter. The more comments I scrolled through, the more I saw these angry comments. Why all these hate comments? What about The Scarlet Letter is/was so horrible for these ex or present high school students?
As we've started to read the book, I can definitely relate with the comments that express their frustration towards the book. For me, Hawthorne's prose can be at times difficult to read and understand. With long sentences and outdated vocabulary, it's easy for students to find themselves lost and frustrated when reading Hawthorne's quite boring novel.
Another reason why students may hate this book is because they feel very disconnected from the book. A high school teacher, Noah Cho, wrote an article about his journey with the book and how it affected him as a teacher. In this article he wrote,
"I always had trouble connecting with the novels I read in high school—The Scarlet Letter, Pride and Prejudice, Heart of Darkness— because I saw so little of myself in those works, and was in consequence less motivated to read and study them. The writing I produced in response to these books was poor as well. My English teacher constantly berated me for not caring more or trying harder; I felt like I was a terrible writer. But once I started reading works in college that spoke to me, sang to me...I fell in love with literature again."
Even though many hate the book, The Scarlet Letter is still a book that many readers still enjoy, and just because others hate it doesn't mean you have to hate it too. I personally hate this book because it's boring. The long sentences and the vocabulary of the book make the boring nature of the book even worse. However, we've only dipped our feet into the book so far, so there's plenty of time for my opinion to change. What do you think about the book? Do you like it, hate it, or feel neutral about the book?
Sources (the links for the reddit post and article):
https://www.reddit.com/r/literature/comments/22eayv/the_scarlet_letter_do_people_hate_it/
https://lithub.com/the-freedom-of-tossing-the-scarlet-letter-from-a-high-school-curriculum/ (quite an interesting blog)
Personally, I don't like the scarlet letter very much because it's so hard to read. However, I don't hate it because the plot is very interesting. I feel like as I continue to read the book, it will get easier and I will like the book more.
ReplyDeleteHi Henry, I completely agree with this comment! I feel like the book is also getting a lot easier for me to read too. Hopefully the book will continue to get more and more exciting to read!
DeleteHi Daniel! I've also personally had so much trouble reading the Scarlet Letter, and therefore disliked it very much! Nonetheless, not only has Hawthorne's prose become easier to read as we progressed through the book, but I began seeing an actual plot. Hopefully, the book will become easier to like as we read through the book. Anyways, great blog!
ReplyDeleteDaniel I think you've said how most of us feel about reading this book. I agree that the book is boring but what drove me away from it personally was the fact that I don't like reading older English and the characters don't really feel that deep or interesting. Although as we continue to read it the plot does get more interesting. Overall nice job!
ReplyDeleteMe personally, I really do not like this book and I find it quite that strange that us freshman must read a book that's so challenging and a book that I personally read with a short attention span. Good Blog
ReplyDeleteHi Daniel! I have had some trouble reading scarlet letter, and I've never been a fan of books with really old English like the one in The Scarlet Letter! Great Review!
ReplyDeleteHey Daniel, thanks for sharing these insights you've found pertaining to our class novel. I think it's really funny whole text threads are filled up of people expressing their dislike to The Scarlet Letter, but like you said I can understand where they're coming from. Cool blog!
ReplyDeleteHi Daniel, I personally did not really like scarlet letter as well, but its starting to become a bit better as the plot is evolving. Good Blog!
ReplyDeleteHey Daniel, I also personally resonate with this blog as I also find that the scarlet letter can be difficult and a little frustrating to read. You have to seriously read line by line and make sure you understand it all to make sense of it. Great blog, keep it up Daniel!
ReplyDeleteHi Daniel, I agree with you and some of the quotes that you shared. I think English teachers are striving to have us read a book that is a different style, but in the end it just makes us frustrated with the book and feel like we are not that good at English in general.
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